Domain payment and transfer reference

Domain transfers use vocabulary from three separate worlds. Registries and registrars have their own terms, banks and escrow providers have another set, and the two overlap only in places. A buyer who has closed one deal a year is not expected to hold all of it, which is why interfaces produce words like clearing, redemption grace period and beneficiary reference with no explanation attached.

What is in this section

The glossary collects the terms used across domain payments and transfers in one alphabetical table, each with a short definition rather than a paragraph.

A separate table covers the rules per extension in denser form than the guides: which registry runs it, whether handover uses an auth code or an internal push, and the rule most likely to catch someone out on that particular extension.

The roles page sets out what a registry, a registrar, a reseller, a marketplace, an escrow provider and a broker can each actually do, which matters when something goes wrong and the question is who has the power to fix it. A registrar cannot overrule a registry rule, and a marketplace cannot force a transfer that a lock is blocking.

The payments page explains settlement, clearing, chargeback, holding period, beneficiary and reference in ordinary language, for people who are not in finance but have to read a bank confirmation and decide whether a payment is really final.

Finally, a question and answer page covers the things asked most often during a live deal, in short form.

When to use it

This material is worth reading before a deal rather than during one. When a transfer is stuck, the useful question is which party in the chain has authority over the step that is blocked, and that is usually clear from the roles page. For the sequence itself, start with the guides, and for the confirmations at each stage use the checklists.